1. Objective: To demystify the significance of body, flesh and blood in animal sacrifice (OT), Jesus’ Eucharist (NT), and their connection to meatism.
2. Methodology: Per Douglas Campbell (2024), sacrificial rituals in the OT are mostly non-atoning; the only atoning one is for cleansing the sanctuary. In the NT, Jesus’ crucifixion is not a substitutionary sacrifice but a call upon us to follow His example, pick up His cross, and share in His righteous sufferings and resurrection (1 Peter 2:21-24; Rillera 2024:243-4, 251).
3. Introduction:
3.1. Animal Sacrifice is Loathed by the Lord
In the OT, animal sacrifice is detested by God and opposed by at least five great prophets (Isaiah 1:11; Jeremiah 7:22-23; Hosea 6:6; Amos 5:21-22; Micah 6:6-8). This’s succeeded by Jesus, who proclaimed, “I desire COMPASSION, rather than sacrifice!” (Matthew 9:13, 12:7), quoting Hosea 6:6. Actually, Jesus died for animal liberation (Akers 2020), apart from waking us from our falsities (Matt. 4:17, 23:13), violence, indifference (Matt. 7:12) and debaucheries (Matt. 5:27-28) to love (Matt. 5:44; John 15:13) and compassion for all sentient beings (Matt. 22:39, 25:40), and to a chaste (Matt. 5:27-28, 18:8-9; Mark 7:20-23), spiritual (Matt. 5:3; Luke 12:31), pure (Matt.5:8), and simple (Matt. 6:19) form of life.
3.2. The Original Eucharist is Vegan
The Eucharist as Jesus’ flesh and blood is not mentioned in Didache. The original Eucharist is just a communal meal consisting of bread and wine as a preview of the reunion in Heaven (Tabor 2012; Chilton 2011). The consumption of blood, even symbolically, is strictly forbidden by the Mosaic Law, and Jesus came not to abolish the Law but to fulfil it (Matthew 5:17). It’s Paul the anti-vegan apostate who turned Jesus into the very thing he’s protesting:- a sacrificial lamb (Chen 2024).
3.3. God and Christ Forgive without Requiring Bloodshed
The idea of Jesus believing that God demands His blood to pardon humanity is incompatible with Jesus’ teachings about God as a merciful being (Luke 15:11-32). As asserted by Jesus Himself in Matthew 19:16-29 and John 8:11, the key for sinners to receive forgiveness and attain eternal life is to keep the Commandments, to help the poor, to confess, to repent, and to stop sinning. No blood of someone else is required. The sins of King David (2 Samuel 12), the adulterous woman (John 8 ), and the prodigal son (Luke 15), which are all forgiven without bloodshed, are cases in point.
3.4. Each Person Carries their own Cross
Moreover, everyone has free will as gifted by God and is thus supposed to be responsible for their own deeds (Deuteronomy 30:19; Joshua 24:15; Proverbs 16:9). No one can die in lieu of anybody else (Ezekiel 18:20).
4. Conclusion:
Animal sacrifice, the Pauline Eucharist of flesh and blood, and meatism are basically the same cult, per Pastor J. R. Hyland (1998), for meatism is sacrifice to the belly-idol (Proverbs 23:20-21; Philippians 3:19; Hicks 2018). Per Clement of Alexandria’s The Stromata (Book VII, Ch. 6),”sacrifices were invented by men to be a pretext for eating flesh.” The Pauline Eucharist even smacks of cannibalism.
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